JXD S7100 / Chinese Android Gaming Tablets

[elgarta]

Actually, the s7100B is probably the better one to hear about since there is little information about it floating around . So did you actually manage to get the device rooted? I heard some people say that it can be done but you have to do it differently from s7100. Have you managed to get the device synced to a google account for the market? I also heard that people who rooted it had some issues with that.

Good to hear about the touch screens being good. I was curious as to how N64 emulation would work since there are so many buttons (C buttons, Z, L+R, A+B etc..) and no handheld can cater for all of them >.

 

[KidIce]

Don't get me wrong. It's actually that I'm typically skeptical of most claims made on DX, PA, FP etc that makes me surprised at the "quality" of the camera. I've just seen FAR TOO MANY "1000 mega pixel" claims to find out the device actually has the same piece of crap 640 x 400 piss ass flicker rate and crap color response cameras that are almost always in anything from said sites. It's not a great camera by any means, but to actually have it take a useable picture at 1600 x 1200 is quite a pleasant surprise when you're as jaded as I am.

I haven't messed w/ it much since my last post (stupid work and sleep). But yeah, 8GB internal and a micro SD slot. Some of the flash is taken up by the OS and pre-installed crap, obviously, so don't expect 8GB free when you get it.

I've only tried two GBA emulators and neither of them will run Golden Sun. Sadly they seem to be regarded as the best for Android, so I have doubts it will work on any of the others I haven't tried. If the lack of Golden Sun is a deal breaker for you...

Edit: Oh yeah... I did get it rooted. Used a Windows app called Unlock Root. Works a treat.

 

[elgarta]

haha, yeah I agree. I am not hoping to have a replacement for my actual camera,but if I am sitting down doing something and I feel the need to just take a snapshot, it's good to know that I can even if it isn't top quality. Beats having to run back downstairs to grab my camera, turn it on and then take the photo.

It's not really a deal breaker I guess, just one of those things that would be an 'added bonus'. I'm actually not sure how a GBA game would look on a 7" screen, so it could be something I'd sidestep all together lol.

Hmm so it is rootable, that is good news also. I was a bit worried that the difference in hardware (whatever it is) might have caused problems. I have never rooted my Android phone so I don't know what is possible/impossible.

 

[granville]

I've only tried two GBA emulators and neither of them will run Golden Sun. Sadly they seem to be regarded as the best for Android, so I have doubts it will work on any of the others I haven't tried. If the lack of Golden Sun is a deal breaker for you...

I'm not sure whether this handheld can run just any Android apk, but there is a version of Gameboid which runs Golden Sun 1 and 2 well. I'm assuming you've tried Gameboid since you've heard it's regarded as one of the best (which it is). Unfortunately the sound is glitched in the second game, so you have to install an older Gameboid version. Gameboid version 2.4.2 to be precise. The newest one is 2.4.7. Track down an older one. I have a copy of it, but i'm not sure if we're allowed to post it here. The newest version is available for free on the slideme marketplace. But at the time when the older version was released, the full version was a paid only thing on the android market (before yonghz was kicked off it). So i'm not sure how the mods here would feel about linking to it. It's easy enough to find on google though. I think the developer reverted the Golden Sun fixes in newer builds because they were causing some issues with other games, not sure.

I've not tested Golden Sun 1 and 2 too extensively, but i played them for about 15-20 minutes and battled a bit. They seem to both work well.

 

[KidIce]

Cool, I'll have to try an older version then. Not really a priority for me at this point, so it will likely be a while before I do... Thanks for the tip though.

And yes, every APK I've put on it whether from the app store or other sources works on it. I have no reason to believe that it CAN'T run "just any APK"... Unless there is something wrong w/ the APK of course.

 

[elgarta]

Yeah I read some issues about the App store not working on a rooted s7100B, but I highly doubted that he knew what he was doing.

 

[KidIce]

The market is a bit flakey, but for the most part it works just fine. There are some app pages that cause the market to shut down "unexpectedly" every time I try to visit them, meaning I can not download them from the app store. I'm clever enough to get them by other means though.. And the pages that crash the market seem pretty rare.

Golden Sun seems to work just fine on DroidEmu Lite, BTW. I never got to any battles, I was just trying to find something it would run on and couldn't be bothered to wade through the opening. What's strange though is I had to use the on screen controls or the buttons wouldn't work when I first mapped it. After shutting down the app and reloading it though my mappings started working. I may just have to buy the full version of this app as it seems to do very well and it emulates SNES, NES, GBA, GBC, GameGear, Genesis. I haven't tried any of the other platforms on it yet, but if the GBA is pretty solid and I'm hopeful the others will be as well.

The more I play w/ this thing the more I like it. My PSP's are almost assuredly doomed as my hand held emulation devices of choice. I mean, it may have shoulder buttons and what not, and may be better suited for controlling an N64 game because of that, but it runs N64 games like crap (read: unplayable) and this thing runs most things I tried pretty damn well, even if I do have to use some of the on screen buttons to play them.

Now I need to buy a fat microSD. All of my unallocated SD's are 1 or 2 gigs (retired from various devices when I bought bigger ones), and while they're fine for testing some crap and messing around w/ this thing there is no way I be satisfied until I have my entire freaking collection of usable ROM and disk images... Now where can I buy a 300GB microSD?!?

Edit: Holy crap!!! VGBA can run Payback! The sound is completely fucked on any game I've tried on it, but there isn't a GBA emulator I've ever seen on any platform from PC to Dreamcast VMU that can run that game. I've never been able to play it on any platform that wasn't my Amiga 4000 (Warp 3D version thank you very much), GBA or a DS. FTW WTF BBQ WOOT!!! Erm.... Never mind, no one has ever heard of this game... I'll stop now.

 

[elgarta]

I've only tried two GBA emulators and neither of them will run Golden Sun. Sadly they seem to be regarded as the best for Android, so I have doubts it will work on any of the others I haven't tried. If the lack of Golden Sun is a deal breaker for you...

I'm not sure whether this handheld can run just any Android apk, but there is a version of Gameboid which runs Golden Sun 1 and 2 well. I'm assuming you've tried Gameboid since you've heard it's regarded as one of the best (which it is). Unfortunately the sound is glitched in the second game, so you have to install an older Gameboid version. Gameboid version 2.4.2 to be precise. The newest one is 2.4.7. Track down an older one. I have a copy of it, but i'm not sure if we're allowed to post it here. The newest version is available for free on the slideme marketplace. But at the time when the older version was released, the full version was a paid only thing on the android market (before yonghz was kicked off it). So i'm not sure how the mods here would feel about linking to it. It's easy enough to find on google though. I think the developer reverted the Golden Sun fixes in newer builds because they were causing some issues with other games, not sure.

I've not tested Golden Sun 1 and 2 too extensively, but i played them for about 15-20 minutes and battled a bit. They seem to both work well.

I managed to find a copy of the version you suggested for my other android device and both golden sun 1+2 worked fine. I didnt go far in 2, but it was better than my psp, so I imagine it'd run better on the JXD S7100

 

[KidIce]

OK, the more I test the N64 for emulation the less excited I become by it. Don't get me wrong, some things perform very well and this thing blows the PSP away for N64 gaming... But there are enough games I've tried that are a disappointing speed wise that I'm far less excited than I was when I ran the (apparently) hand picked stuff that came w/ this thing. But I want to set the record straight, that N64 emulation is far from perfect... Completely to mostly usable for many games, but just as many are unplayably slow or flat out broken.

I'm also extremely disappointed by the C=64 emulators for Android, and as far as I can tell it's the emulators not the device. What a shame, but hopefully this will improve as the emulators mature. I'm sorry to say that at this point my DS or PSP are better alternatives for on the go C=64 emulation.

Most 16 bit era and older consoles/handhelds run very well emulated on this device. MAME does pretty well as long as you consider what you're trying to emulate vs what you are running it on.Amiga emulation is not at all too shabby, though the lack of any sort of virtual keyboard is a huge disappointment. I can't play Cadaver for example, simply because it ask me to select my language by 1,2,3 or 4. There is no way (as far as I can tell) to press those keys w/ UAE4Android, damn shame.

Still haven't tried any PSX emulation, once my new 32GB microSD gets here that will probably change. Also haven't tried classic Mac or x86 emulation.

Really though, I'm still really glad I bought this thing. My friend has a Kindle Fire and after messing w/ that for a bit, I'd much rather have the s7100. I bought this thing almost entirely for retro gaming, and this is the far better device for that despite the Kindle's higher clock speed.

If there is anything anyone wants tested, let me know.

 

[elgarta]

Interesting. I haven't heard anything about C-64 but I had heard that the Amiga is pretty broken in terms of emulation. Weird that they wouldn't include a software keyboard.. But I am not familier with the system so I might bypass it altogether. The N64 only had a handful of games that I actually played, Mario, Star Fox, Zelda OOT/MM and Mischeif Makers (;;>_>) and afaik they are hardly powerhouse games, but if I can get some Star fox on a reasonable speed then it's cool

I ended up buying one for myself after reading up on it, just waiting on it to arrive now. I actually got another Android Tablet for a late late birthday present.. so it is giving a good exposure to how android tabs work and what emulators to use. I might keep that as more of my general purpose tool instead of my old laptop. I also have been loving MAME on it, although I have an incomplete romset for it so I haven't tried many. So many old games I never played since I was too young to have that much money when the local arcade was still up and running.

With the SNES, have you tried any of the special chip games like Stunt Race FX or Star Fox? I tested Star Fox on my tab and it ran a bit slow but it still ran, but I just picked up a free emu from the market to see if it actually ran. All-in-all I am liking what the android platform is capable of, but I just need to try it on a device with controls since I hate the touch screen only function of my latest toy.

 

[JulietStMoon]

With the SNES, have you tried any of the special chip games like Stunt Race FX or Star Fox? I tested Star Fox on my tab and it ran a bit slow but it still ran, but I just picked up a free emu from the market to see if it actually ran. All-in-all I am liking what the android platform is capable of, but I just need to try it on a device with controls since I hate the touch screen only function of my latest toy.

Well, I can't speak for Android tablets, but I've always run SNESoid on my Samsung Epic (one of the original Galaxy S phones, with a 1ghz single core processor), and all the FX chip games (Super Mario RPG, the Kirby games, Starfox) run perfectly without issue.

As for Android gaming with controls, idk if you would find a separate device a hassle or not, but have you heard of or considered the iControlpad? It's what I use for emulation on my phone, and I love it! This past November, I did a full playthrough of Ocarina of Time using it with N64oid quite comfortably.

 

[elgarta]

Well, I can't speak for Android tablets, but I've always run SNESoid on my Samsung Epic (one of the original Galaxy S phones, with a 1ghz single core processor), and all the FX chip games (Super Mario RPG, the Kirby games, Starfox) run perfectly without issue.

As for Android gaming with controls, idk if you would find a separate device a hassle or not, but have you heard of or considered the iControlpad? It's what I use for emulation on my phone, and I love it! This past November, I did a full playthrough of Ocarina of Time using it with N64oid quite comfortably.

Nice. As much as I loved emulating these games on the PC back in the day, I just found that it wasn't as satisfying as actually playing roms on a piece of gaming hardware, whether it was the PSP, DS or even on my PS2, but due to the difficulty in getting Mario RPG running especially, I haven't had the chance to enjoy it as much as people say I should, so I might try to find a better SNES Emulator to see how it runs.

I did think about going down that path, but what really stopped me was:

1) My Phone (HTC Desire) has a horrible battery, plus I feel weird playing games on a phone (Besides make Snake, Angry Birds of Sudoku ).
2) I was given a tablet just the other day (4 months after my birthday!) and afaik the only viable controller option for that is the iCade, which kind of kills portable gaming.
3) I'd already ordered the JXD before I was given the other tablet (acer iconia a501) as I got a bonus in my pay from work, and figured I'd see how it goes and if it gets a good reaction from my brother I'll get him one too

Of course it probably wouldn't come with my on trips overseas as I will take the acer for general tasks like emails and stuff, and I'll take my PSP + GBM for the gaming side of things. Nothing beats a quiet night alone in an LAX hotel room like whipping out the PSP while sitting in bed lol. Especially when I am too cheap to order movies and won't do anything big since I usually get my connecting flights early the next morning.

 

[granville]

Snesoid will run the majority of SNES games extremely well on many phones released in recent years. Even special chip games like Mario RPG and Yoshi's Island as well as Starfox present no real problems.

Snesoid does have issues with sound quality however. To someone who didn't know any better, you probably wouldn't even be able to tell. But it's a bit scratchier and lower quality than it should be. Also, the sound effects in Earthworm Jim 2 don't play correctly (a problem many ZSNES users will notice right away). There's another SNES emulator for Androids called SNES9x EX that improves the sound quality and is generally considered better than Snesoid by some people. It's pretty fast as well. Though the multitouch controls are rather lackluster for devices without physical buttons (holding two face buttons at once doesn't seem to work). It'll probably work really well for a device like the JXD though since it has buttons. You won't find it on the Android Market though, it was removed a while back for some reason or another. You have to go here and download the APK manually-
http://www.explusalpha.com/home/snes9x-ex

I've personally found that the best SNES emulator for Android devices currently however is called SNESDroid, by Halsafar. This one can still be found on the Market...I mean Google Play (will take some time to adjust to the new name). It's better than Snesoid because it's built using a newer and better version of the SNES9x emulator. As far as i can tell, the sound support is awesome and it even plays EWJ2's sound effects. From what i gather, it's based on SNES9xNext (the PS3 port), which in itself is based on newer SNES9x 1.52. The other SNES emulators for Android are apparently using an older version of SNES9x, 1.43 i hear. So SNESDroid comes with that version's improvements in accuracy and compatibility. It even supports graphical filters like the PC emulator, though they require a beefy device to run them well.

The caveat is that SNESDroid doesn't run nearly as well as the other SNES emulators for Android. It's recommended you have a rather fast phone. I did manage to get it running rather well on my Samsung Fascinate when i overclocked it to 1.4ghz. It only shows any hints of slowdown in some of the SuperFX chip games, and only in very stressful situations. And even then it's just barely any problem. It's worth getting SNESDroid if you have the power to run it. Anything better than my phone would probably handle it like a champ. Get a really powerful device and you might even be able to apply some video filters (dunno how well they run on dual or quad cores).

 

[JulietStMoon]

I haven't touched a real SNES since I was about 10 years old, so I don't notice the sound quality difference. But I gotta tell you, as convenient as emulation on my 3DS with the SuperCard is, nothing looks more gorgeous than playing on a samsung's super AMOLED screen. I mean, wow!

 

[KidIce]

The Zelda's suffer some stuttering and graphical glitches, but are playable on the N64droid that comes pre-installed. The other 3 function pretty much just fine. Mind, I didn't spend a lot of time w/ any of them.

DroidEmu runs Star Fox just fine, but Stunt Race FX runs like a slide show. I haven't tried them on any of the other SNES emulators, but I suspect granville's advice of trying a different emulator would probably improve the situation.

 

[elgarta]

Yeah I figure it might come down to having a few installed for testing, and to see what works best for different games. I never knew there was a snes9x port for android so I might need to look around and see what is actually out there, besides the ones on the google market

 

[raulpica]

So, I'm probably going to buy an Android gaming Tablet soon, and I'm overwhelmed by the sheer number of alternatives.

Most certainly I'll get something with physical controls, onscreen controls aren't good for massive emulation.

Soo... any of you guys with a S7100B can test how well h264 720p vids are played? That's a massive selling point for me

Also, I was looking at one of the various Yinlips alternatives (I'd prefer to get a tablet, but a 5" gaming device wouldn't be too bad too... I mean... SHOULDER BUTTONS): http://www.yinlips.com/en/products/ and they sport the BOXCHIP A10, which is a CPU with awesome decoding properties (JXD promises h264 decoding up to 2160p for that CPU!), and probably it's a lot better for emulation too.

I mean, the S7100B comes with an Amlogic M3, which is a single-core CPU clocked at 800Mhz. The Boxchip A10 is a dual-core one (at least it seems so) clocked at 1.5Ghz, so emulation MUST be better on that! They have the same GPU (Mali400).

Problem is, I'm sure that the S7100 is gonna be better when it comes to support (rooting, alternative firmwares and such) as it's a lot more common around... Also, most of the Yinlips are RESISTIVE. And I _loathe_ resistive screens.

Eh, choices, choices. Guess I'll need to do a bit more research.

EDIT: Screw it, the BOXCHIP A10 is based on Cortex A8, and it looks like it's usually clocked at 1.2GHz, and it's still single core. A 400Mhz boost isn't good enough, when downgrading to an A8.

Well, it looks like S7100B it is!

So, I'm probably going to buy an Android gaming Tablet soon, and I'm overwhelmed by the sheer number of alternatives.

Most certainly I'll get something with physical controls, onscreen controls aren't good for massive emulation.

Soo... any of you guys with a S7100B can test how well h264 720p vids are played? That's a massive selling point for me

Also, I was looking at one of the various Yinlips alternatives (I'd prefer to get a tablet, but a 5" gaming device wouldn't be too bad too... I mean... SHOULDER BUTTONS): http://www.yinlips.com/en/products/ and they sport the BOXCHIP A10, which is a CPU with awesome decoding properties (JXD promises h264 decoding up to 2160p for that CPU!), and probably it's a lot better for emulation too.

I mean, the S7100B comes with an Amlogic M3, which is a single-core CPU clocked at 800Mhz. The Boxchip A10 is a dual-core one (at least it seems so) clocked at 1.5Ghz, so emulation MUST be better on that! They have the same GPU (Mali400).

Problem is, I'm sure that the S7100 is gonna be better when it comes to support (rooting, alternative firmwares and such) as it's a lot more common around... Also, most of the Yinlips are RESISTIVE. And I _loathe_ resistive screens.

Eh, choices, choices. Guess I'll need to do a bit more research.

EDIT: Screw it, the BOXCHIP A10 is based on Cortex A8, and it looks like it's usually clocked at 1.2GHz, and it's still single core. A 400Mhz boost isn't good enough, when downgrading to an A8.

Well, it looks like S7100B it is!

EDIT2: The S7100 could theorically be overclocked up to 950MHzs without adverse effects, it seems.

 

[elgarta]

I wrote up a big write-up since I missed your edit lol, but yeah it seems you got your info from similar sources online .

The JXD S601 is pretty cool but the problem is the resistive screen. I heard reports that it has been overclocked to around 1ghz lol. If you do look at the s7100 be careful what you order. There are still the original models floating around and the newer B model. Some dodgy sites might not state it clearly! There is one site that sells it with a carry/protective case for around $160 or so, but it should be easy enough to find.

 

[raulpica]

I wrote up a big write-up since I missed your edit lol, but yeah it seems you got your info from similar sources online .

The JXD S601 is pretty cool but the problem is the resistive screen. I heard reports that it has been overclocked to around 1ghz lol. If you do look at the s7100 be careful what you order. There are still the original models floating around and the newer B model. Rumour is that the B will get an upgrade to ICS in the future once JXD support it, but it seems that the normal models won't for a while.. Also, I am hard pressed finding custom roms for the B model

I've read around that the S7100B doesn't have Bluetooth onboard, instead some early S7100A models can come with it. Well, no big deal when it comes to external control pads, but it sucks if you want to get a keyboard to go along with your tablet!

The S7100B has a CPU which is 1GHz compliant (probably downclocked?) so it should be possible to overclock it to 1,2GHz, which is a REALLY nice result.

 

[elgarta]

I wrote up a big write-up since I missed your edit lol, but yeah it seems you got your info from similar sources online .

The JXD S601 is pretty cool but the problem is the resistive screen. I heard reports that it has been overclocked to around 1ghz lol. If you do look at the s7100 be careful what you order. There are still the original models floating around and the newer B model. Rumour is that the B will get an upgrade to ICS in the future once JXD support it, but it seems that the normal models won't for a while.. Also, I am hard pressed finding custom roms for the B model

I've read around that the S7100B doesn't have Bluetooth onboard, instead some early S7100A models can come with it. Well, no big deal when it comes to external control pads, but it sucks if you want to get a keyboard to go along with your tablet!

The S7100B has a CPU which is 1GHz compliant (probably downclocked?) so it should be possible to overclock it to 1,2GHz, which is a REALLY nice result.

I often keep an eye on XDA and apad.tv since they have a few people who are posting updates for rooting/OCing the 7100. apad is one of the few forums I have seen that has a dedicated "Technical help" sub-forum for it too lol. The current OC kernels out there are still being tested as the A & B models don't run the same ones.